A technology for transferring files via file transfer protocol (FTP) is well known in the art (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-177987, for example).
In recent years, memory cards have become quite popular as a type of storage media. Memory cards have a nonvolatile memory, such as flash memory, in a card-like package and have rapidly become a common storage media used for storing data in digital equipment, such as digital cameras and portable music players. A variety of memory cards with no standardized specifications have appeared on the market, such as CompactFlash (registered trademark; hereinafter abbreviated as “CF”), SmartMedia (registered trademark; hereinafter abbreviated as “SM”), Memory Stick (registered trademark; hereinafter abbreviated as “MS”), and SD cards (registered trademark; hereinafter abbreviated as “SD”).
These memory cards are connected to a memory card reader/writer (hereinafter abbreviated to “reader/writer”) capable of reading from and writing to the memory card. A personal computer (PC) or the like capable of communicating with the reader/writer can access a memory card connected to the reader/writer Printing devices equipped with such a reader/writer have become popular in recent years. By connecting a memory card storing an image data file saved according to the JPEG format, for example, to such a reader/writer, the printing device can directly print the images without the user of a PC.
If an FTP client program is installed on a PC or the like, and an FTP server program is provided in the card reader, by connecting a memory card used as the destination for saving data files of photographed images for a digital camera or a cell phone with a camera function to the reader/writer, the data file saved in the memory card can be transmitted to the PC according to FTP. In other words, the reader/writer can be used with the PC as an external FTP processor.